by your black eyebrows my faith has suffered a thousand cracks!
come, and i will remove from your languorous eye a thousand stings.
hey, companion of the heart whose friends are forgotten-
i never want a day without the thought of you each moment!
our time is old and crumbling- save us from the killer of farhad,
whose deceit and treachery has made me sad for shireen.
heat of longing’s fire has drowned me in beads of sweat, like the rose.
bring, night-wind, a fragrant breeze from the ever-refreshing one!
the realm of becoming is forever bound to beloved and saqi;
i see the kingdom of this world as the rogue guest of love.
if the beloved prefers another in place of me, he’s the judge.
god forbid i prefer my own life in place of the beloved!
because the vision of last night’s dream has left me reeling,
the nightingale said “good morning, saqi, where are you- wake up!”
i will leave my bed on the night of travel for the palace of virgins,
if when i surrender the soul, you are the candle at my pillow.
the hadith about desire recorded in this ghazal
is certainly without mistake, because hafez conveyed it.
notes: king khosrow promised farhad the king’s own wife,
shireen, who loved farhad, if he could dig a tunnel through a
mountain. but after farhad accomplished the miraculous, the king
had him killed. shireen means sweetness. saqi= wine bearer.
hadith= oral tradition going back to the prophet muhammad,
the veracity of which depends on exact transmission. hafez is
implying he got it straight from the prophet.
